Halloweegan Bat Pancakes and Vida Vegan!

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Thank you for helping keep the Halloweegan fire burning! On top of each sweet comment, Becks offered me a whoopie pie to "stoke the creative furnace", Megan offered me lots of suggestions (and now I'm just going to have to make a Coffin Coffee Cake!), and Cindy suggested I throw in some crafts like I had intended to do. I'm all re-inspired now and ready to tackle the second half of Halloweegan! Thank you for all your support! :)

Like I promised, today we have a Halloweegan blooper courtesy of Ms. Buffoonery. I made some batty pancakes that were supposed to look like this:



Look at those perfectly round heads! That's how they were supposed to be, but the first time I made them they looked more like a bunch of flat tires:

*FAIL*
*Wha wha whaaa*
*EPIC FAIL*

*Sigh* The chocolate cream that I made was way too soft and it completely melted on top of the warm pancakes! Dummy. The second batch of heads went better, and I decided to go with a regular chocolate buttercream instead. Buttercream for breakfast? Well, yes! It's Halloween!

I made silver dollar Pumpkin Pancakes and replaced three tablespoons of flour with three tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa powder + two tablespoons of sugar. The buttercream was Chocolate Buttercream Frosting from Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World. Only the bottom of the buttercream got a little melty this time which left me with round heads!

To plate the pancakes, cut them in half (straight or zig-zag) and place them on a plate like this:

Headless Bats
Wings!

If you want to decorate the plate with a strawberry or raspberry or cranberry sauce for a bloddy effect, that makes them look extra creepy! I was really winging it with the sauce, but it was similar to this allrecipes sauce. Use a cookie scoop or ice cream scoop to, well, scoop little frosting heads right in the middle of each set of wings.

Halloweegan Bat Pancakes

The eyes? They're dried cranberries. Yuck. They're only there for decoration and I ate around them to avoid chewing on a piece of evil. You can use whatever you want though, raspberries, nuts, chocolate chips...

Unrelated Halloweegan cuteness! Check out who was hanging out in our back yard yesterday!

Praying Mantis

So cool! I don't think I had ever seen a huge praying mantis up-close and personal like that before. This guy was checking out our every move. If we moved to the left, his head moved to the left in a very security-camera, robotic way. If we moved to the right, well, you get the point.

Praying Mantis

Do you see that look of disapproval on his face? (I know he was a male, he said his name was Dwight.) That's because I had just told him that I wasn't going to attend the Vida Vegan Blogger Conference because I am an anti-social hermit who also happens to be broke. Are you going? You should, you don't want to disappoint Dwight. He'll never let you hear the end of it! Plus, it looks like it's going to be awesome and all the cool kids are going to be there! :)

Vida Vegan Blog Conference
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Comments

  1. Hahaha, I kind of like the melty, weird bat heads better. They're funny.

    Praying mantises freak me out! I came across an albino mantis in my back yard while attempting to do yard work once, and let's just say I will no longer be doing any yard work, ever.

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  2. Love the pancakes! I bet you could concoct a bat head from almond butter and chocolate — I mean in case you didn't want to eat buttercream for breakfast, but I guess most people would probably just want the buttercream. I once got attacked by a mantis who'd been giving me the eye (and the creeps). It flew at my head and wouldn't give up. They're cool to look at but not THAT close. Sheesh.

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  3. We just had to shoo a praying mantis out of our living room last night! I think Dwight is a world traveler!

    Those pancakes were a great idea! I was trying to think of something halloweeny to do with pancakes - that's brilliant! melted heads are just more creepy!

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  4. Mwahaha! Even your fails are cute ;)

    (I is on the train, reading your blog in Londinium).

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  5. I love your pancake idea. They're much cuter than real bats (they freak me out), even the melted ones.

    I don't think Dwight would like me very much either. I'm a broke, anti-social hermit too.

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  6. Yesss! I'm so excited that you're going to make that cake... I have to live vicariously, because my oven sucks (so I tend to get my sweet kicks elsewhere).

    I love the bats, too! They're adorable. I'd eat the eyes, though... me and the ole cranberries are good friends. ;)

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  7. Bat pancakes!!! <3! I have the perfect brunch idea now :)

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  8. I think the melty heads are creepier...in a weird way. Anyway, anything that means buttercream frosting is involved with breakfast rules.

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  9. I like the melting bat pancakes! I'd still eat 'em! But not if Dwight was eyeballing me the whole time, that'd creep me out just a bit. ;)

    I just heard about Vida Vegan...I want to go! But it's so far away, I'm not that far on planning yet.

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  10. those pancakes are bad ass.....that mantis is kinda creepy! :) great photos of it though!

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  11. What a fantastic idea!! I know 2 boys who would love these....and one grown man!

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  12. What a cute and creative idea. Even with the melted heads they still look way cute.

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  13. Wow, the praying mantis is so beautiful! Thank you for sharing the picture.

    I think your first pancakes are no fail at all. They look great!

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  14. Those are some awesome pics of Dwight. :-)

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  15. awwww, i love the handsome praying mantis! he's the cutest - and he looks quite curious, indeed!

    have i ever told you that bats are my absolute favoritest animal? :) i love them all - and i love your halloweegan bat pancakes! so clever, River! :) buttercream for breakfast = the best! when i was growing up we'd always have dessert first on halloween night. the tradition started with my grandmother who one year made a turkey for halloween per the requests of her six children (one of them being my father). anyways....pre-halloween-fun-times dinner rolls around and guess what?! the turkey wasn't done yet - so my grandmother served them dessert first and they had dinner after trick or treating! ah ha ha! i'm all about sweet at some non-traditional times, so bring in the breakfast buttercream! i must say, that while i find dried cranberries to be not too bad, i say yuck to goji berries. i know they're good for me and i try to eat them every once in a while, but i don't care for them at all!

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  16. I'm glad you have more Halloweegan steam. And, melted or not, those bats looked yummy! As for the praying mantis...I think he was trying to get in on some of the Halloween action!

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  17. Your caption under the failed pancakes gave me a very good giggle! Those are adorable pancakes, and I don't know that I'd be able to eat them.

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  18. Those bats are too cute! You must have been force-fed cranberries in a former life. ;) I actually liked the first ones--they look kinda like cute l'il bunny heads!

    I also can't afford to go to the conference even though I am only partly an anti-social hermit (sniff! Why is everything in Seattle or Portland??) ;) Hoping Dwight will forgive me--to me, he looks scarier than the bats!

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  19. I have a praying mantis same size in my garden - they could be buddies. I'll get my people to call your people.
    :)

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